The Tail Collector can be found in ??? on the True Moon. The Tail Collector is found inside the tail collector's house, a new location of the Developer's Office.

There are two other tail collectors; one is in the Underground Waterway in Edward's Tale, and will trade a Gold Tail with him if he has the right number of Bronze and Silver Tails. During the first part of the Final Tale, the player can go to the Path to Babil to give a number of Small Tails to the tail collector's apprentice, in exchange for the Rainbow Tail or any other tail.

In the final tale "The Crystals", all colored Tails except the Rainbow Tail are dropped by specific enemies in specific locations during a specific Moon Phase. Some of these enemies can also be encountered in individual Tales.

Tails can also be acquired in other ways. In Palom's Tale, a Black Tail can be found in the pub in Troia, but access into the areas where the tail is found costs a total of 159,999 gil for three memberships.

In Edward's Tale, he can find Bronze and Silver Tails throughout the Tale, and enemies randomly drop them. A trader in the Underground Waterway will trade Bronze Tail x5 for a Silver Tail, and Silver Tail x5 for a Gold Tail. As enemies can potentially drop the lesser tails, this can be done more than once if the player can obtain the tails needed. The locations of Bronze and Silver Tails is as follows:

In the final tale, around the world the player can find Small Tails, 21 in total. A trader in the Cave of Eblan will trade seven Small Tails for any colored tail of their choice, or fourteen Small Tails for a Rainbow Tail. This is the only way to get a Rainbow Tail.

The locations of the Small Tails are as follows—note that many of the locations referred are unmarked locations on the overworld map:

Tails can be dropped by rare and powerful monsters that appear in separate sub-chapters that can be revisited at any time before the end of Chapter 3. After that, the respective enemies that drop each tail are found in different locations.